Boulevard of Broken Dreams
by Kathryn M.B. Denson
Summary: Ch. 2 up. Heero sinks slowly down further into his mental illness, and two friends try to help him cope with it. But when he refuses to help himself, how can he get better? Bad summary story is better.
1. WhisperEvanescence

A/N: I have a friend who does chapter fics where each chapter is a different songfic. Hers are usually Metallica and other metal bands, and my tastes aren't quite that…well, heavy metal. But I thought that I would give this style of writing a try. I know I'll be using songs by Evanescence and Seether, and Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day is going to be in here somewhere (as is obvious by the title)...you may see some Saliva, Linkin Park, and Nickelback as well.

This is a sequel to Red Christmas, but if you haven't read it, it probably won't affect you too much when you read this. If you read it, great. It will just give you a little more back story. The rating will start out at T, and it may change. Red Christmas was rated M only because it was gory. I don't do sex scenes, so just know that if it's rated M, it's only gore and violence.

It has been about four months since the events in Red Christmas, where Heero reveals to Relena some events that happened on a Christmas when he was six years old. Almost all of the people in his neighborhood, including his mother, were killed in a mass murder at the orders of General Catalonia. Men, women, children, and elderly—there was no discretion. Heero survived by hiding under his mother's fallen body.

Heero had a difficult childhood, and he has always had nightmares about it, and it's quite obvious that he suffers from depression. But what if his post-traumatic syndrome couples with some nasty side-effects of the Zero System and makes poor Heero even more ill? He leaves the Sanc Kingdom, not telling his superiors, his co-workers, or his friends where or why he's going. No one really seems to know what happened to him…perhaps not even Heero himself.

Warnings: Mental illness (he isn't violent to anyone, except to himself), hints of 1xR but no appearances by Relena (yet), language (I had to use the f-word because it didn't sound realistic enough without some kind of expletive and only that and the g-d-word fit. I made a vow never to use the g-d-word, so f-word it is.)

Chapter One

Whisper

Heero Yuy shivered. Everything felt dark and cold. He lay on a simple cot. There were blankets on it, but they were so thin that he knew they wouldn't help him much, and he was lying on top of them, facing the cold, blank white wall. He ran his fingers over the painted surface…it felt like ice. The air around him was moist and cold…unbearably cold.

His skin had long ago become clammy. There was no warmth here, no light…

Why the hell was he here, anyway? He could vaguely remember that it had somehow been his choice…

_You will never be strong enough…never good enough,_ a Voice hissed in his ear.

Heero shivered. He could almost feel air on his face as if someone had truly whispered to him…but the Voice was familiar, and he knew from past experience that if he rolled over, he would not find anyone there. Psychologists called them auditory hallucinations. They didn't seem like hallucinations at all. They seemed so real.

_You'll never rise above this,_ the Voice taunted him. _You don't even deserve to live._

"Quiet," he snarled. "Just be _quiet_ and leave me—"

"Heero?"

This was a real voice, and he was grateful that it had interrupted his thoughts. But it also embarrassed him to be seen like that, talking to shadows on the wall.

"It's me." The lights came on. He blinked in the sudden light, but he didn't turn to face the speaker. There was a sigh from the doorway. "I brought you some food."

Footsteps began and stopped again, as if someone had started to walk, then paused. Heero knew without looking what had caused it…shards of a bowl only half-emptied of its food. It had been hurled against the wall the day before, when the Voice echoed too loudly in the room. It hadn't stopped the insults, hadn't done a damn thing to make them quiet down.

"Heero…why did you do this?" The voice sounded pained. He heard the sound of a tray being set down the nightstand next to the cot, and then he felt a hand on his head. He welcomed the feeling of warmth, and he didn't resist when the person rolled him over to face her.

Hitomi Funaki's blue eyes stared down at him. "You turned the heat down again," she said, almost accusingly.

Had he? He didn't remember. He stared up at her blankly, unable to form a response.

"You need to stop doing that. You'll freeze, Heero."

_Why does it pretend to care?_ the Voice snickered in his ear. _Do you believe the words you're hearing, foolish child?_

"No…" he whispered.

"What?" Hitomi's brow knitted together. "No, you didn't do it?"

"I…" he searched his memory. "I don't remember."

She shook her head. "You're really starting to worry me." She straightened out the pillow behind him. "Sit up."

Heero shifted himself into a sitting position. Hitomi picked up a sliced half of the sandwich and brought it up to his mouth. He put out a hand to stop her. "I can feed myself," he muttered.

"You haven't been doing a very good job," she said darkly. "Most of the time, I come in here to find you haven't touched your food. Sometimes you're talking to people who I can't see. You used to do that…when you were sleeping, but this is different. You're wide-awake and seeing things or hearing things…" She looked down. "Heero, you're losing weight. You aren't sleeping enough; I can see the dark circles around your eyes. You're…" There she broke off.

_…not strong enough…_

"Crazy?" he prompted.

"You know that's not what I mean."

_It lies, it lies again,_ the Voice chanted. "No…I mean…" Heero ignored the voice the best he could. "You know I'm crazy."

"You're sick," Hitomi said. "You need a doctor."

_It does not want to care for you, it wants to get rid of you, _sang the Voice sweetly. "No doctors."

"Heero! Do you want to get better or worse?" Hitomi demanded harshly. "A psychiatrist could help you; maybe prescribe some medicine for whatever's going on with you."

"No doctors!" He almost yelled it, and Hitomi flinched. The Voice seemed to move in a circle around the room, echoing off the walls. _You see, foolish child, it does not want you here, it does not care, it does not want you, no one wants you, you are not good enough…_

Soon the string of insults grew louder and louder. Heero pressed his hands to his head. "Shut _up_! I told you to shut up!"

"Heero, stop!" Hitomi dragged his hands down. "Look at what you're doing!"

He opened his eyes. There was blood on his hands, trapped under his fingernails and running down his palms. "Uhn…"

"You need some help, Heero," Hitomi pleaded. "I only want to help you."

_It lies, it does not want to help, it wants to send you away, it wants you gone…_

"Nothing can help me."

"Won't you at least try?"

"I would. But no doctors," he added as an afterthought.

"Yes, doctors! Heero, you're hurting yourself!"

"Then tie my hands to the bed! I'm not going to a fucking asylum!"

Hitomi slammed her hand down against the nightstand. "If you won't help yourself, you're a lost cause, Heero."

"I've been lost since the day I was born," he said, not for the first time.

"No. You were not lost until you refused to save yourself." She started for the door. "Eat the food. I'll be back later with some straps."

"Straps?" he repeated, watching her move.

She whirled back around. "You said to tie you down. Maybe you didn't mean it, but it seems like a good idea right about now."

Before she left, she turned the heat back on. When she came back an hour later to get his tray, Heero had eaten, but the room was cold again. He offered no explanation for it. She could only purse her lips and tie his arms to the bed. He wouldn't be getting up to turn it off again.

Crickets chirped outside. Heero realized suddenly that he didn't know whether he was on Earth or on the colonies. He couldn't remember anything. He didn't know how he'd gotten from the Sanc Kingdom to…wherever he was.

Relena…did she even know he was gone? Was she worried about him?

_You are not worthy of her love,_ hissed the Voice.

"Shut up," Heero mumbled uselessly. He had realized early on that the Voice didn't use gender pronouns when it talked about other people he knew…with the sole exception of Relena. Maybe the Voice thought she was the only person who deserved the honor of gender. Everyone else was just "it."

_She has forgotten you already, you should forget about her, she is too good, your touch would stain her…_

"I know, I know…" he replied dully. "I won't go near her again."

The Voice didn't hear him. It continued telling him about how good Relena was and how bad he was. It spewed the same old insults that it had before. He only half-listened to the Voice as he drifted off into an unwanted sleep.

_Blood was an all-too-common sight in Heero's dreams. It was all he saw at first…and he wasn't sure where he was. He was lying on his side in a pool of blood. His blood? He wasn't sure yet._

_He looked around, taking in his surroundings. It was X-18999. He had only been to this colony twice—once in AC 188 and another time in AC 196. Judging by the bodies lying around and the building he was in front of, this was a dream from AC 188._

_He rose to his feet and walked through the bodies. Open-mouthed and staring at him accusingly. _This is your fault, _their eyes seemed to say. It made sense that they should think that. After all, he was the flesh and blood of their murderer._

_Some of them had been killed by an anti-OZ movement in the area, White Fang, in its infancy, still led by Quinze. But Odin Lowe had taken advantage of the revolt when he discovered there was a bounty on the Alliance's General Septem._

_"Dad," he said out loud. But he knew he wasn't there…he knew he had died in this place, on this day…_

Catch me as I fall.

Say you're here and it's all over now.

Speaking to the atmosphere,

No one's here and I fall into myself.

_Blood and guts…why were all of his dreams so bloody? What the hell had he done to deserve such an awful life?_

_He shook his head as he stared at the corpses, some killed by his father's hand. Why couldn't he have died with them? His head ached with questions that went unanswered._

_There was a throbbing pain in his chest, and he looked down. A bullet had gone through his heart, and the wound was spurting blood. He groaned and pressed his hands to his chest to stop the bleeding, trying to ignore the pain. He had to find his father…he had to live the dreams out to the final destination. Only when he reached it would he wake up…_

This truth drives me into madness.

I know I can stop the pain if I will it all away…

If I will it all away!

_The blood continued spurting. The pain slowed him down. No, this would not be a quick dream. This injury was designed to make the dream last until he was screaming, begging for it to stop._

_"Murderer…son of the assassin Lowe," whispered all around him. They weren't all dead. Oh, God, some of them were still alive. And they had every reason to hate him._

Don't turn away. (Don't give into the pain.)

Don't try to hide. (Though they're screaming your name.)

Don't close your eyes. (God knows what lies behind them.)

Don't turn out the lights. (Never sleep, never die.)

_He shuddered involuntarily, unable to look into the eyes of the men who didn't deserve to die. He was the one who deserved to die. He was Odin Lowe's son and accomplice, and he still lived._

_The building had been blasted to pieces. That was his doing…his father's job that would have been left incomplete. Heero had taken the detonator from Odin's limp hand and finished the job._

_No, not all of these were his father's fault. He didn't know how many people had died in the explosion, but it had been enough._

_This was Heero's first murder. His first failure._

I'm frightened by what I see,

But somehow I know that there's much more to come.

Immobilized by my fear,

And soon to be blinded by tears.

_Heero found himself suddenly standing in that room, unaware of how he had gotten there. He bent down, trembling, over Odin's body, ran his fingers gently across his forehead. Cold and dead. His eyes were closed. Most eyes of those killed in violence were open, staring upwards yet comprehending nothing, with wide, gaping mouths and a horrified look on their faces._

_Odin's face wasn't like that, even though he had more than three bullets in him. His face was relaxed. He was at peace._

_Heero leaned closer to him. "What did you do to deserve such peace in death," he whispered in his father's unhearing ear, "when you turned me into this, a creature who suffers such pain in life?"_

I can stop the pain if I will it all away…

If I will it all away!

_"Foolish child…you don't deserve peace."_

_Heero looked up at the Voice, thinking it would be useless. The Voice had no body. Until now._

_The face it had chosen enraged him. Relena's beautiful smile met his glare. Her violet eyes widened when she saw the anger in him. "Heero, you didn't think I cared, did you?" she said, feigning innocence._

_"You are not Relena," he said._

_"Then who am I?" It wasn't even her voice speaking. It was the Voice that haunted his waking hours, now here to torment him in his dreams. It stepped closer, its hand reaching out to his face…_

_"Don't touch me!" he snarled, leaping back. Relena's face looked surprised and hurt. "How dare you use her form to do this," he spat out. "How dare you mock her!"_

_It smiled. "Foolish, foolish child, she does not care. You will see that she is going on just fine without you there. She is still giving speeches at public events, still going through stack after stack of paperwork…in fact, she is happy that you are gone."_

_He could remember her holding him while he cried. He had stayed at the Sanc Kingdom less than a week after that, but nearly a thousand times in that week she had given him some form of comfort. A smile, a gentle touch on the hand…once she had sent a humorous card his way that made him smile. She had to have cared…_

_"She didn't care, foolish child. She pitied."_

_"Yes…"_

Fallen angels at my feet,

Whispered voices at my ear,

Death before my eyes,

Lying next to me, I fear.

_"You don't deserve to live, but death is too kind a gift for you. You should live on in agony." It shook its head—Relena's head—as if disgusted. "Foolish child! You had hoped for a life with the pacifist. You tried to befriend her in hopes that she would love you and care for you…the most beautiful angel with a monster like you? As much as she pities you, she sees what you are. She knows you're a monster and so do you!"_

_"She would never call me a monster! She would never hurt me that way!" Heero shouted._

_"Ah! So you admit it!" It circled him. "She pities you."_

_He looked down. "Yes…"_

_"Have you heard the story of Prometheus?" it asked suddenly. "How he disobeyed the god Zeus and was punished by being tied to a rock? Do you know what pain he suffers? No? I shall tell you, foolish boy. Every day, an eagle pecks out his liver and devours it. Every day, that liver is regenerated so that he may suffer again."_

_Heero stared up at the Voice. "So I am to suffer as Prometheus did?"_

_Relena nodded. "Yes."_

_He gave a bitter laugh. "Why does that not surprise me?"_

She beckons me; shall I give in?

Upon my end shall I begin?

Forsaking all I've fallen for,

I rise to meet the end.

_"Go on," Heero choked out. "Peck out my liver if you want!"_

_The Voice laughed with Relena's mouth. "Not tonight, foolish boy." It cupped his cheeks in its hands, and when he did not resist, it pressed Relena's lips to his mouth. He felt nothing. "Tonight I have other plans for you."_

Servatis a periculum….servatis a maleficum.

He woke up in a cold sweat. When he tried to sit up, the straps tied around his hands prevented it. "Damn you, Hitomi!" he screamed.

Heero groaned inwardly. He had been the one who wanted Hitomi to tie him down…this was his doing, not hers. If he could have slumped, he would have. He just gave a defeated cry and tried to stay awake…

Foolish child, you will not be rid of me, not in sleeping or in waking, the Voice said cheerfully.

"I hate you," he said passionately.

The Voice ignored this. _You are weak, foolish child…you are a freak of nature, you should have never been born, you are a monster, you do not belong here…_

"Shut up!"

_…monster…freak…_

"Please!" he cried helplessly. It ignored his pleading…it always did.

Okay, how's that for dark? Sorry the chapter was so long. This could almost be rated M, but I have seen things with worse material than this get away with a PG-13 rating, so T it is. If it gets any worse than this, I'll up it to M. There will be Heero/Relena in later chapters, so if you like Heero/Duo or another couple that isn't Heero/Relena, don't continue reading this. I have nothing againts yaoi content—actually, I rather like 2x5 fanfics—I just think Heero and Duo are wrong for each other and he is better off with Relena.

Anyway, please read and review…if you don't like this, review anyway, but don't flame me just because you hate the 1xR pairing, okay?

By the way, there is no budding romance between Heero and Hitomi. If you read the Red Christmas, you know that Hitomi was a friend of his and nothing more. It may come out later, if I remember, but in my head I had this relationship between them planned where Heero referred to her as a cousin, even though they aren't blood-related. Plus, there's another restriction that keeps her from being interested in him.

More chapters to follow, please review!


	2. LiesEvanescence

A/N: pout I didn't get very many reviews. sulks Well, that's okay…I guess songfics don't get as many reviews as other fics. I have all of the songs picked out for what I'm going to do now, and it will either be ten or eleven chapters because I can't make up my mind on whether or not to add the eleventh song in. Anyway, please read. This chapter gets a little bit more into Heero's inferiority complex.

To Angel Yuy, one of the chapters _will _be the song Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day. As it so happens, the first two chapters happen to be songs by Evanescence, but these are the only songs by that band that I'm planning to use. I couldn't think of a title for the story, and I thought Boulevard of Broken Dreams was a good one—especially considering that I was already planning to use it. I think it'll be the third or fourth chapter. We'll see.

Chapter Two

Lies

Thalia set a bowl of oatmeal down in front of Hitomi. "Feeling okay?"

"Not really," Hitomi said, stirring the oatmeal half-heartedly. "I keep worrying…Heero's only getting worse."

"Is he still refusing to get help?"

"Yeah." She looked up into Thalia's eyes. "I know I should just drag him to a mental hospital and force him to get help, but…"

"I don't think you can do that, unless he's violent," Thalia said matter-of-factly, pouring cinnamon over Hitomi's cereal.

Hitomi smiled weakly. "Thanks." She took a small bite of it. "Tastes good. But anyway, I don't think I can honestly say Heero isn't violent right now."

"Why?" Thalia's voice took an alarmed turn, her brown eyes wide. "Did he hurt you?"

"No, nothing like that. He's screaming at people that aren't there, and yesterday…" Hitomi bit her lip before continuing. "…yesterday, when I was there, he started yelling at no one and scratching his face. He was bleeding. I have his arms tied to the bed now."

Thalia shook her head. "We should really take him to the mental institution, Tomi. We can't do anything for him here. If Heero's only getting worse…" She broke off when she saw the look on Hitomi's face. She looked half-angry and half-depressed, her eyes fixed firmly upon the oatmeal that she had barely touched. "What…"

"He won't go," she muttered. "When I suggested it yesterday, he only said 'no doctors.' He seemed scared just thinking about it…"

"But he's only going to get worse if we keep him here."

"I know, but I doubt sending him to an asylum is going to help him much, either. He keeps refusing to see doctors. If he's refusing that, do you really think sending him to a psychiatrist will help? He won't respond to them! And he'll probably refuse the medicine…and food."

"He's refusing the food here, too," Thalia pointed out.

"Not all of it," Hitomi replied. "Yesterday he ate. I don't think he slept very much the night before…"

Thalia was pouring a third bowl of oatmeal. Hitomi frowned. "What are you doing?"

"I'm bringing this down to Heero. I can see it upsets you to see him like this…and I wasn't that close to him." She turned back to Hitomi and bent down low enough to kiss her gently. "Besides, if it's as good as you say, he can't resist it, right?"

Hitomi smiled weakly. "I guess so."

"Of course. And while I'm trying to convince him to eat it, you eat your oatmeal, too. You've barely touched it."

Heero stared at the ceiling. With nothing left to do, he started counting the tiles on the ceiling, and what he could see of the tiles on the floor.

_Foolish boy…_

"Leave me alone."

_You don't deserve peace, you don't deserve to live, selfish boy, son of a murderer, freak of nature…_

He closed his eyes, feeling a headache beginning to develop. He was starting to feel hungry. Maybe Hitomi would be by with food soon. There was no window and no clock, so he didn't know if it was around time for breakfast yet.

_You don't deserve food, you deserve to starve, you don't deserve freedom, you deserve pain…_

If he kept yelling at the Voice, he would only make his own voice hoarse. It wouldn't matter if he yelled, anyway. The Voice never listened to him. Oh, it heard him well enough, but it never obeyed his commands. His pleas and cries only brought more taunting. As if he didn't know on his own that he was worthless.

The door opened, interrupting his musings. "Heero?"

It wasn't Hitomi. "Thalia?" Heero guessed. He hadn't seen her in years. But he had kept in touch with Hitomi by e-mail, and he knew that they had been living together.

"I brought some food," Thalia said cheerfully. "It's oatmeal. Hitomi says it's to die for."

_You don't deserve food, _sneered the Voice.

"Thanks," Heero said without enthusiasm.

Thalia knelt down next to the bed. "How do you feel?"

"Terrible." _You don't deserve to feel anything else but pain, foolish child, selfish child, monster…_

"What's wrong? Did something happen while you were in Europe?" Thalia asked.

_This one pretends to care as well…it lies, it does not care, it wants to get rid of you just like its consort…_ "I don't think so." He frowned. "No. I think I just…" _Murderer…_ "Finally lost it."

"Lost what? Your sanity?" Thalia inquired.

"Unless normal, sane people hear voices, I would think so." Heero wondered momentarily what the Voice would think about the comment, but it didn't offer its opinion. That was a first.

In more ways than one. That was the first time he had admitted out loud that he was hearing a Voice.

"Are the voices people you know?" Thalia pressed. "People you…killed, maybe?"

"It's one Voice. And I don't know who it is." He remembered it taking Relena's form in his dream, but it wasn't Relena's voice. She wouldn't have said such things, either. _She pities you, foolish child, pity is not love, you do not deserve pity, you do not deserve to live…_

"Do you hear it now?"

"I always hear it."

"I'll take that as a yes, then." Thalia frowned. "Is it…a woman's voice?"

He thought about it. "It…no. It's not a man's voice, either. It can't seem to make up its mind what gender it is. Whenever it talks about people, it refers to them all as 'it' instead of 'he' or 'she.'" _Except Relena,_ the Voice pointed out. "Except for Relena Darlian."

"Hmm. Maybe you should see someone…"

"No doctors!" Heero snapped immediately. _It lied, it wants to get rid of you, it doesn't care about you, it wants you out of its house…_

"Is the Voice telling you not to go to a doctor?" Thalia asked. "Because the Voice seems to be hurting you. Hitomi and I are taking care of you…maybe you shouldn't listen to the Voice."

It lies, the Voice insisted. "It says…you're a liar." _Foolish child, do not tell it such things, it will hurt you_… "If you're worried about her hurting me, you wouldn't be saying I deserve pain!" Heero snapped, unaware at first that he had spoken out loud.

Thalia looked baffled. "Heero?"

"It's just…" He felt suddenly very stupid, like a child with an imaginary friend. He sighed. "Where am I, anyway?"

"In Osaka," Thalia replied.

That was right. Hitomi had been living in Osaka for the past two years. She was originally from Tokyo, but Heero doubted she wanted to be that close to her mother. The two of them didn't get along, especially since she started dating Thalia. "How did I get here?"

"Don't you remember?" When he shook his head, she sighed. "I guess you came by plane or something. You showed up at the doorstep one day. No car, no vehicle. You couldn't have walked all the way from Europe to Japan without crossing water, especially with Japan being an island. I can't believe you don't remember."

"What's the date?"

"March 16. You've been here for over three months."

"Three?"

"Mm-hmm." She reached over to the straps, untying one. "Eat the oatmeal. It's good for you. While you're eating, maybe you should think about what I said about a doctor."

"I'll think about it."

"We could find one in Sanc if you want," she offered.

"Sanc?" he repeated.

She nodded. "You had friends there, right? The other Gundam pilots, and the Darlian girl. Speaking of her…she's pretty, intelligent, talented…why haven't you dated her? I'd say she's definitely your type."

_You don't deserve her, _the Voice replied. That was the one definite truth the Voice had ever spoken. He shrugged at Thalia, and she left him alone to eat.

_Bound at every limb by my shackles of fear,  
Sealed with lies through so many tears.  
Lost from within, pursuing the end,  
I fight for the chance to be lied to again._

_Why does it have to be this way?_ It was his own thought, not the Voice's, that made him bitter. He had been a genius of a child, a bright and intelligent little boy, always curious, always questioning the world around him. He had astounded adults with his large vocabulary, his knowledge that belonged to a far older person than himself. What had he done then to deserve this now?

_Foolish child…you do not see the mistakes you have made, you are a monster, you do not deserve to live…_

Heero closed his eyes, and the Voice seeped through his mind, reminding him of every failure he had ever made.

_You will never be strong enough.  
You will never be good enough.  
You were never conceived in love.  
You will not rise above._

Every time he closed his eyes, every time he left them open, the Voice was there. He had always been plagued with nightmares. It was in the daytime that the Voice stole his sanity, but now it had plans to wreck his dreams as well. Here it couldn't take a form…but it enraged him that it could use Relena as a vessel to do its evil. Relena would not have taken part in any plan to hurt a man in this way, even a man with as many sins on his record as Heero had.

"Relena…" he muttered out loud. Everything else was blood, darkness, and chaos. But when he thought of Relena, he thought of the way her face lit up when she smiled, melted his glacier of a heart…the look in her eyes when she talked about something she was passionate about. Her message of absolute pacifism. She was…so incredible. Too perfect to be a human. She had to be an angel…

_But through my tears breaks a blinding light,  
Birthing a dawn to this endless night.  
Arms outstretched, awaiting me:  
An open embrace upon a bleeding tree._

_And you would stain her further with your blood, darkness, and chaos, selfish child, son of a murderer, freak of nature…_

No. He could think about her all he wanted, remember the way she had felt in his arms when she hugged him, but he could never touch her again. He couldn't even look upon her…he would pollute her. Like the red of the snow that Christmas Eve when he was six years old, he would tarnish her.

_And besides that,_ Heero thought, _I don't believe in God, or in angels._ He saw no possibility that there was a higher being out there controlling all that went on. If there was, it was a God not worth praying to. He left His children in violence, blood, and war. He let people like Heero come to be. A loving God would have killed him on sight.

_You don't deserve death…_

"No. I don't."

_Rest in me, and I'll comfort you._

_I have lived and I died for you._

_Abide in me and I vow to you._

_I will never forsake you._

If He existed, perhaps God had never truly abandoned Heero. Perhaps He had never been with him at the start. Maybe that was why when he walked down a street, looking at all the smiling faces, they didn't seem to see him. He wasn't one of them, but something else.

_A monster, foolish child, a freak of nature, a murderer, that's what you are, you are worthless, you don't deserve to live, you don't deserve to die, there is no punishment great enough for you, you are not good enough…_

"Never good enough." A bitter and humorless laugh came from between his dry lips.

Relena was probably worried. Sitting in her desk, shuffling through paperwork, she was probably staring at the teddy bear he had given her, wondering what had happened to him, wondering why he never said good-bye…

Duo…well, Duo was Duo. Likely, he'd be making jokes about Heero's disappearance to co-workers, trying to make it seem like it meant less than it did. But he would stay up at night, staring at the moon like he always did, worrying.

Quatre would have been the next-most-worried out of the Gundam pilots. But he wouldn't hold it all in like Duo. He would talk over it with Trowa, who would tell him he felt exactly the same way. The two of them would talk over their feelings about Heero's absence. Wufei might join in. He might not. Chances were, he wasn't that worried. He probably figured Heero was a big boy and could take care of himself.

Wufei was wrong to think Heero was so strong…he saw what he wanted to see. Quatre and Duo also saw Heero as a figure of strength, while accepting that he occasionally made mistakes. Trowa was probably the closest to figuring out what was really going on in Heero's mind, and even he was way off.

_They'll never see._

_I'll never be._

_I'll struggle on and on to feed this hunger,_

_Burning deep inside of me._

_Relena…_

_Do not think of her, selfish child, do not tempt yourself, she does not need your presence, she does not need you staining her, she pities you, you don't deserve her love…_

"I know, I know already," he shouted, his voice somewhat hoarse. "Can't you even let me imagine it?"

_Monster, freak of nature, you do not deserve her love, you do not deserve that pleasure…_

The freakish lullaby went on and on, circling the room until he fell asleep.

Okay, that's the end of chapter two. Let's see some reviews, okay!

IF YOU DO NOT REVIEW, I WILL EAT YOUR EYEBROWS!

(And don't think I'm kidding.) .


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